Cairngorms Life

Sorry for the length of time I have not posted, I said in my last blog that I was busy, well so as not to tell people our house was empty I was in fact away down to Cornwall for a week with my sister, but I am back after my mammoth 1,248  round trip ( one disadvantage of living in such a cracking place).

What did we get welcomed back to, some extremely heavy rain, I had every intention of walking the 150 yards down to our burn/river Fender to take some shots to show you how quickly it rises & then falls. But we walked down to the village after the downpour when the Fender was in full spate & roaring, but on walking back an hour or so later (in the sunshine) it had dropped right back to near it’s normal level. This is a good illustration of spate rivers & is how people (fishers normally) can get caught out by the sudden rise & drown. We also have a large amount of hydro electric schemes up here & when the authorities release water from the turbines, this raises the level even quicker , with the same results.

We witnessed annual  event this morning. We never get more than one or two Starlings in our garden & they are not a common bird in the village either. But every year they gather in flocks around the house, we presume in getting ready to migrate back to wherever they go back to. While eating breakfast we saw about 200 yds. away a flock of over 60 sitting on the power cables. fortunately they stayed there long enough for me to put my big lens on the camera & capture a small portion of them on the nearest lines. It would be great to see a murmaration of them (as we have seen down south) , but I doubt we will get one as they normally move on fairly quickly.

 

 

 

Today was the annual church flower & produce show in our village. This is not just open to church goers, but all the village & is well supported by one & all. There is a sections in the following categories, Veg, flowers in a vase, house plants, jams, chocolate cake, custard tarts, black bun, photography, art & home brews.There are also sections for men only (to try & encourage men to do some baking) , plain scones, jam & Victoria sponge. Children are covered as well with mini gardens, pictures etc. For the last 6 years I have (along with one other ) have judged the vegetable section, most probably the best supported section of the show. The village has many keen gardeners, none more so than two members of the church who always have a contest between themselves, it is a bit like the competion between Joe Grundy & Bert Fry on the Archers & are often spoken of in that same manner. So a lot is dependant on us two judges to judge as fair as possible. Some crafty competitors try to put any defect on their produce on the bottom of the plate, so we have to check them all.

I did put some photos in, but did not read the brief, which was views of Scotland, all my shots were my bird ones, so ooops from me.

Below are some of the photos I took before the church was open to the public, showing the flowers & veg, Sloe & Fruit Gin & the ladies judging the jams. After the event being open all day at about 4pm they draw the raffle, then auction off all the produce, or at least all that the entrants want to be sold. You would not believe the prices for the cakes & gins, especially those that won first place.

Although I shall not be going, in the village hall tonight is a jazz quartet playing with money being raised for the village hall refurbishment & a local charity. So you see we are very active here & though it normally ends up with the same old faces organising things, they all get an excellent attendance by both locals & holiday makers.

I shall be very busy in the coming week & so will not be writing my blog for at least that week, so catch up with you then.

 

 

I have just realised that this blog is all about life in the Cairngorms & I have given you no real facts about this wonderful area of the U.K. So be ready to be bored with all the following facts & figures.

The Cairngorm National Park is the biggest in the whole of the U.K. covering an area of 1748 square miles, which to put that in proportion is twice the size of the Lake District Park & bigger than Luxemburg. Going from Granton on Spey in the North, Balleter in the East, Kingussie in the West & good old Blair Atholl in the South.

It has 43 Munros (that is mountains over 3000 ft) of which 5 out of the 6 are the highest in Britain. More important it has 8 working distilleries within it, so need to venture any further than here.

We of course have Balmoral Castle one of the Queens residences, plus even more important we have here in our village Blair Castle, the home of Britain’s only allowed private army. This status being granted by Queen Victoria when she visited the castle & was escorted by The Highlanders (as they are known) on her way to Balmoral. Also in our village is the Folk Museum covering the rural life of ordinary village folk local to this area. Plus of course the one of only a handful  of fully functioning watermills in Scotland (don’t forget to watch Nadia’s tv programme coming on soon to see it in action).

For all you film buff’s 10 films & T.V. programmes have been made here :-

Outlander, Mrs Brown (Queen Victoria’s film, no relation to Mrs Brown the comedy), Centurion, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman, of course Brave, The Crown, Victoria & Abdul, Monarch of the Glen & The Queen. I can exclusively reveal to those outside the village that for a couple of months ago we had a film crew here in Blair Atholl filming up Glen Tilt & around the castle The Queen part two. They took over the village hall for two weeks ,storing all the costumes required in there, had a huge marque in the car park for out door props like fences & trees & loads of trucks & people carriers everywhere. Put a good amount of money into the local economy including money towards the village hall restoration fund.

One funny story, which must have annoyed the film crews. When they were filming the horse & carriage around the castle, one of our many low flying military jets we get coming through the glen, kept circling the area, which must have interrupted the schedule some what for that day.

So you see this area is a haven for us locals & also holiday makers from all around the world. On another occasion I will discuss how that affects our lives.

 

We had a dry day so it was outside work all morning, the Misses doing her annual painting of all 3 sheds & garage with fence paint, this is the only painting I let her do, the rest are my jobs. I was replacing a rotten work top in my potting area, so both busy.

After lunch we decided to go for a walk UP the glen & I took my camera with my long lens, in the hope of finding some deer to show you. Non in the first “normal” spot but looked further down the field & there were two female Roe Deer, unfortunately they were well over a quarter of a mile off & were fully aware of our presence. So quickly set up the monopod & steadied myself to have a go at getting them. So the first 3 shots below are of those two, before they disappeared from sight.

We then walked along a sheep’s path instead of the road, a long narrow field with woods each side , so felt hopeful. Not a bird or deer in sight, but as we were climbing over a gate at the far end of the field we disturbed a Roe fawn lying in the grass. It was off like a rocket before I even had time to raise my camera, never to be seen again. We joined the original road & there 200 yards in front of us were another pair of Roe’s. But as soon as they saw us, which I am sure was way before we saw them, they were off. Hence the last shot as I got one just before it was out of sight.

We occasionally get Roe in the field in front of us, especially if we are about early morning, normally during the winter we see them more often. A few years ago during a cold period we had over sixty Red Deer stags came into the field having been spooked by something on the hills, that is the shot above. Though not as I have said a shot from today I thought you would like to see that this isn’t a fisherman’s tale, it really happened.

 

A couple of usual days in the national park, apparently the ceilidh was a great success, I didn’t go as I virtually have two left feet & the wife does not know her left from her right. But it was good how both village people turned out & holiday makers to make it a triumph & what encouragement for those young musicians.

Here at home had an unexpected task when a neighbours daughter was informed that her partner had been taken into Dundee Hospital intensive care & she should be at his bedside as it was touch & go. The girls Dad does not like driving at night, Mum does not drive & she was to upset to drive, so a phone call to me ended up seeing me drive the 70 odd miles to Dundee at 11 last night, getting home at just gone 2am. Glad to say he has come through the ordeal, but not out of the woods yet.

We went for a walk UP one of our hills yesterday, was a bit windy with the threat of rain, hence the picture of “her indoors” walking in her Rockstar Games coat. The main reason for the shot is to show you just how steep our hills are & how good it is for a couple of 70 year olds to walk them, though I am sure they get steeper every time we do these walks.

After we walked down the village for our refreshments today I chilled out with half an hour in my hide & was rewarded with some good bird photos (wont bore you with more of them) & the fab shot of the Red Squirrel having just come out of the nut box with a couple of peanuts in it’s hand, looking at me as if to say “you can take as many shots of me as you like, but you are not having my peanuts”. It always fascinates me just how long the fingers & toes are on these beauties, though if it were human I guess we would need those nails a bit shorter. But if you could see how athletic it is amongst the trees, then you need that length of nails for the grip.

 

This morning we woke up to sunshine, a very rare event lately, as the sun got higher it started to burn the dew off the ground & a very fine mist could be seen through the sunrays amongst the trees in the garden. I tried to capture that (see below), not all that well, but I was in the middle of my ablutions when it happened & in order not to frighten the holiday makers next door by going into the garden naked, took it through the window.

By ten o’clock we were walking down the village to get milk & magazines (every Wednesday for this task), plus of course a drink & scone in the Mill. As the sun was shining, instead of walking down the road I went through the riverside woodland path, a cracking walk & with the sun shining on the trees made it look even better, of course I had my camera with me, hence the next two shots. One day I will capture the Salmon going up the river to spawn, only seen them twice & didn’t have my camera with me either time.

When it is warm the trek up the hill seems even longer, but we both made it just & then , until dinnertime carried on with a few outside tasks, which the rains had prevented us from doing lately, Jan continuing her shed painting , me just pottering about praying dinnertime would come & get a sit down.

After lunch I went down the village (in the car this time) to the village church fayre held in the village hall. Always a popular event with locals & visitors alike. The main attraction being the homemade cakes & jams, followed by book stall & most probably the most attractive event for the children, the tombola. Four tickets for a pound & if your raffle ticket ends in a 5 or 0 you win a prize. These range from bottles of wine, chocolates, unwanted smellies (one young lad won a Dove set of bath accessories & said to his Mum “at least you will smell okay tomorrow”). When I did this stall one year the guy in charge did keep the ticket for the bottle of whiskey back until about 2/3rds of the prizes were gone before putting it in with the rest, to keep the grown ups spending their pounds.

They also have a bric a brac stall & homegrown veg & plants stalls which do fairly well, freshly picked lettuce & beetroot always go first.

As you can see the hall was well attended & continues to do so year on year, my only hope is that they have it all cleared up ready for table tennis tonight.

It is going to be a busy weekend in the village as well Davie at the chippie has a marque, bar & live music on every weekend behind the chippie & we can hear it a mile up the Glen every Friday, Saturday & Sunday. Also there is a family Ceilidh on Saturday night in the village hall, a band from within the Cairngorms Park, made up of young musicians tours the Park villages throughout the summer playing in  halls & this weekend it is our turn. Again normally very well attended, with a bar & stovies at half time.

 

 

 

No post yesterday, two reasons :-

1/ A fairly standard day , with nothing exceptional happening. A day in Perth, shopping, followed by a visit to my wonderful chiropractic Carol to give my neck a little tweak. Well a mammoth tweak really, getting into the deep tissue which I am still feeling this morning. Followed by lunch out in a farm shop that produces most of their own menu, if not it is sourced locally, which is very tasty & very popular.

2/ Just settled down after tea & was going to write something on here when Alan phoned & said “fancy some fishing?”  Well what was I to say, SWMBO said “go on off you go” so I did. Alan lost 4 & I caught 2 (Rainbow Trout), gave one to an old keeper friend of mine down the hill (in exchange, when he gets some, he gives me venison liver, which is delicious), he was delighted. The other one went into the freezer for Christmas smoking.

So I thought I would catch up this morning with this boring old life of mine, that is before I go off for an hour in the gym.

One thing I forgot to mention on Sunday, was watching the G.P. when I heard a noise in the kitchen, presumed it was a Blackbird coming in the open door for it’s sultanas. Went to investigate only to find a wren flying continuously into the glass window. Managed to catch it & as these are one of Jan’s favourite birds went into the garden to show her. She was, of course, delighted to see on close up, but it was very distressed & exhausted. So we lay it on a bush & it just stayed there, mouth wide open panting for breath. Me being me rushed indoors & got my camera for a quick snap, most probably the most out of focus shot you will ever see on here, but at least I got a shot. We left it on the hedge & went back 2 minutes later & it had flown off, so hopefully it made a full recovery & has learnt not to come into those big humans house again.

 

 

So far I have managed to post everyday since starting this blog, after yesterdays posting I seriously thought what am I going to talk about tomorrow. On a Sunday when Formula One is on it is a case of get up, walk down the village & have a drink & scone in The Mill, walk home, have early lunch & sit until now watching the G.P.

Well at half six last night a mate in the village phoned & said “I am sitting out side you have got 5 minutes to go fishing with me or I won’t go either”. So on consulting SWMBO I got the nod to go. As  Alan & I had already fished the main pond on our village club waters this week (you are only allowed to fish this water once a week), we had to go to Sarah’s Pond. Now this is a very small stretch of water, less than the size of a football pitch, way up in the hills & is a short but steep walk uphill from the main pond. The club stocked it with Brown Trout all just about a pound in weight two years ago, these have bred in the small burn that feeds it.

The pond is part of the Atholl Estate hydro scheme & is a header tank for our loch below, which takes the overflow down a very steep pipe to Blair Castle where they produce enough electricity to keep the castle going in the summer & lighting in the winter. Last winter we had some heavy storms & a vast majority of the Brown Trout went down to the lower loch in a flooded torrent off the hills & these trout are now being caught in the main loch, leaving only small ones in the top pond.

This of course meant we were only going up to the pond for a bit of catch & release fishing for the small 1/2 lb trout that had bred there. We both caught two of these fish each & thought & expected that to be the standard of the evening. Imagine my surprise when I saw this huge trout come up & suck my dry fly (that is one floating on the top to imitate an insect hatching off the water) . Now the pond at the moment is very weedy & with a barbless hook I was expecting to lose the fish before it got to the bank, but no, I hung onto it, called Alan over to net it. He picked up my net which promptly broke on the rim & Alan had to hold it together & somehow we managed to get it in. Before today my biggest Brown Trout was a 1. 1/2 lb one & on getting it home & weighing it , this one was Two pounds six ounces. So thanks Sarah’s Pond for giving me my blog for today. Picture below of the fish in a standard size sink at home.

 

I am a member of The Scottish Wildlife Trust & today one of our committee members organised a small walk on the Limestone Pavement just East of Kinloch Rannoch. The weather was wet & windy, so please excuse the photos as conditions were not good.

The pavement is made up of Dalradian Limestone & is roughly 600 million years old, so old in fact that unlike other Limestone it does not contain any fossils. It is a SSSI site so it is very rare, it is said to be the best example in the whole of Scotland & drifted over to us from Norway in one of the ice ages.

In between the rocks are worn away sections that can go down 6 feet & are called grykes, while the higher areas are called clints. Because the grykes are small & fairly inaccessible to sheep & deer various plants can grow & not be eaten, these include Rock Rose, Thyme, Northern Felwort, Dog’s Mercury, Herb Robert & Herb Bernet, Wood Sorrel & best of all Wild Strawberries.

On the pavement are two big lumps of Schist that seem out of place amongst the Limestone, but these must have also drifted with the glazier, local folk law has a different tale & claims they are two witches turned to stone.

The talk & walk took about an hour & there was seven of us being shown around & it was of great interest, I had passed the area many times on the road some fifty yards below us & had never been aware of their existence.

I was about a mile away from one of my favourite fishing lochs so after the talk went & had a couple of hours fishing (with no success of course)  in what can only be described as very brisk conditions, pretty near to blowing a gale, but good fun in such a cracking place.

The photos below were from this morning & in order are :-

1/ The view over to Kinloch Rannoch & Loch Rannoch.

2/ The Munro (mountain over 3000 ft) Schiehallion.

3/The witch rock.

4/ Strawberries in the grykes.

5/A rare wild Gentian.

6/ Loch Kinardochy where I fished.

 

 

 

I said I wouldn’t write anymore about birds unless we had a quiet day, well went to the gym this morning, came home & it has more or less rained ever since, so yes it is one of those quiet days. The pictures below were all taken this afternoon of birds I have not included on my blog so far, 1/ A Greater Spotted Woodpecker. 2/ A juvenile Blue Tit. 3/ A Greenfinch. All shots were through double glazing with rain on the windows, so not my best ones, but there was no chance to take the camera outside to take them.

I thought I would also include a list of the birds we have spotted from indoors or out in the garden, not sure if I have left any off but this is roughly it.

 

Tit family are, Blue, Great, Coal & Long Tailed. Siskin, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Redpoll, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Wood Pidgeon, Collar Dove, Sparrow Hawk, Buzzard, Blackbird, Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Goldcrest, Wren, Tree Creeper, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Swallow, House Martin, House Sparrow, Dunnock & Robin. A total of 28 birds, which is great. We have seen Osprey a fair distance away feeding on one of the Rainbow Trout Lochs that I fish & also what we believe was a Hen Harrier quartering in a distant field. We frequently hear Tawny Owls & once a Little Owl, but non outside the list are ones that we can class as regular visitors to us.

Just been through the bird book & as a further addition will add the following, Brambling, Nuthatch, Oyster Catcher, Warbler (not sure which one , but think Garden), Goldfinch, Bullfinch & Red legged Partridge. So total now stands at 35.

One visitor that comes daily is the Sparrow Hawk, an unwelcome guest who normally has a bird a day, you do not see it everyday, but the feathers are found of various small birds in certain places in the garden. On one occasion I was in the garden & tried to frighten it away & it came straight at me, I swear that if I had not have ducked it would have got me.

On the other hand our Buzzards are fairly friendly, I have mouse traps in our tiny cellar & in the loft as they are always trying to establish themselves in our house & if I do catch a mouse I will throw it into the field & daily the Buzzard will swoop low over the house to see if there is a meal for him. Where it thinks this meal comes from I have no idea, but it knows it has a regular source of food to feed its youngsters. A pair most years nest in a nearby Oak tree & this year I think they only had one young one.

Lets hope tomorrow brings a better day as I am going on a guided walk over some nearby Limestone pavement, so guess what tomorrows blog will be on?